LAHORE, June 16: The army has decided to directly monitor pace of work on the Mangla Dam Raising Project. According to sources in Wapda, the engineering crop of the army and the Crops Commander Mangla have been assigned the duty to ensure timely completion of the project.

The contractor will brief the army authorities on Saturday about the status of the work and its plans to make up for the lost time, which is over six months.

The project had been held hostage to a dispute between the contractor and the lessees of burrow areas around the dam site about the cost of construction material.

The contractor insisted that it must not get construction material at Rs1.5 per ton whereas the lessees insisted on varying costs ranging from Rs6 to Rs15 at various points of time.